Rack-O is a quick, accessible sequencing card game for 2-4 players. Each player holds a plastic rack of ten slots and races to arrange ten numbered cards into ascending order by repeatedly drawing one card and discarding another.

How to Play Rack-O

Components

• A deck of 60 cards numbered 1-60.

• One rack per player, with 10 numbered slots (often labelled 50, 45, 40, ... down to 5, or similar) to hold ten cards.

Card Set by Player Count

Use a subset of the deck depending on how many people are playing:

• 2 players: use cards 1-40 only.

• 3 players: use cards 1-50.

• 4 players: use the full 1-60 deck.

Setup

1. Shuffle the cards in play.

2. Deal 10 cards to each player, one at a time. As each card arrives, the player drops it into the next open slot of their rack from the top down (first card in the top slot, second card in the next slot, and so on).

3. Cards may not be rearranged in the rack at any time — they stay in the slot they were dealt into and are only ever swapped out by the draw-and-discard action.

4. Place the remaining cards face-down as the draw pile; turn the top card face-up to start the discard pile.

Turn Sequence

On your turn, do the following:

1. Draw one card, either:

   • the top face-down card from the draw pile, OR
   • the top face-up card from the discard pile.

2. Decide:

   • If you drew from the draw pile, you may either discard the drawn card immediately (face-up onto the discard pile) or slide it into your rack — replacing the card in any one slot. The replaced card becomes your discard.
   • If you drew from the discard pile, you must place it into your rack (you cannot immediately re-discard it); the card it replaces becomes your discard.

3. The card you slot in goes into the exact slot you choose, displacing whatever was there. You never reorder existing cards.

Play passes to the left.

Winning a Hand

The first player whose ten cards are all in ascending order from slot 1 (lowest) to slot 10 (highest) calls "Rack-O!" and wins the hand. The hand ends immediately.

Winning the Game

Score each hand (see Scoring). The first player to reach the target total — traditionally 500 points — wins the game. Play continues hand after hand until someone crosses that target.

The hand winner scores 75 (50 for ten cards + 25 Rack-O bonus); others score 5 per ascending card from slot 1 until the run breaks. With the optional Bonus Rack-O on, the winner can instead score 125/175/275/475 for a consecutive run of 3/4/5/6+. The match winner is the player with the highest total when someone crosses the points target (default 500).

total_points is the authoritative match score. The points_target, bonus_racko, and hands_played knobs are match params on this variant's ruleset; the Bonus Rack-O consecutive-run reward is folded into total_points and is not separately recorded as a metric. The per-player count metrics hands_won and best_consecutive_run are diagnostic side metrics only and intentionally do NOT sum to total_points.